ON THE HILL: November midterm elections

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) waiting for a Fox interview in Statuary Hall after the State of the Union, (Doug Christian)

ON THE HILL WITH DOUGLAS CHRISTIAN

WASHINGTON – The November midterm elections are in 57 days.

For Democrats to reclaim the House, they need to take 24 Republican seats while keeping the 194 seats they currently hold. While all 435 House seats are up for reelection every two years, only 48 of those seats are truly considered competitive. Forty-one of those up-for-grabs seats are held by Republicans, whereas only seven of them are in Democratic hands.

By that metric alone, the math clearly favors Democrats to win the House.

In the Senate, however, it is a different story. The Republicans only hold a two-seat majority over the Democrats, but it is less likely the Democrats will retake the Upper Chamber.

Senators are elected to six-year terms. So of the 100 Senate seats in total, only 33 seats are being contested this year. Of those 33 seats, 24 of them are being defended by Democrats, and only 9 are defended by Republicans.

One of the surprisingly competitive Senate races to emerge in 2018 is for the Texas seat held by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), as a new Texas Senate poll shows Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) is only within 1 point, or within the margin of error, of Sen. Cruz.